Photoshop Reference???

Can anyone suggest a good reference book on Photoshop? It needs to be a good reference for beginners. Thanks!

There are so many good ones that it's hard to know which one to recommend. The best idea is to go to your closest LARGE bookstore and spend time thumbing through many of them to see which one fits your own learning style best. Personally, I like the "Photoshop CS3 Bible" by Fuller & Fuller, published by Wiley in 2007. It is humongous and detailed, which is just what I want. On the other hand, it doesn't have the full-color glossy photos and extensive project-oriented tutorials that a lot of other people prefer. Bottom line .... collect recommendations, but don't buy a guide without checking it out for yourself first.

Thanks, I appreciate your post Rolig. Exactly what I am doing collecting recommendations so I can then go better armed to the bookstore...save some time and gas money that way. Have a good one.

Not exactly beginner level, but "3D Game Textures: Create Professional Game Art With Photoshop" by Luke Ahern is a fantastic book. I wouldn't recommend it for someone just starting out with Photoshop, but for anyone who already knows the basics of the program and wants to learn how to texture well, it's really good.

As for actual beginner books, my suggestion is the same as Rolig's. The best thing to do is to go to your local (full size) Barens N' Noble's or Walden Books, and be prepared to spend a good amount of time looking through what they have. If they're a full size store, chances are they'll have a full blown Photoshop section, since there are so many books on it. Grab an armfull off the shelf, find a seat, and start reading. Whichever author seems to speak your language the best is the one whose book you should buy. They'll all have basically the same information. It's just a question of which one is best formatted to suit your particular learning style.

You'll find that some books are basically lists of commands, some are collections of walkthroughs for various procedures, and some are more conversational. Myself, I prefer the latter since I find it makes for a less boring read, but not everyone does. If you're more a "cut to the chase" kind of learner, you might prefer one of the other styles.

One of these days, I really must publish a PS book of my own. It's been on my "when I get around to it" list for years now. You know how it is, though. So many projects, so few Orion Slave Girls.

*giggles at the Orion slave girls comment* Yes, I can see where a few...uuummm....personal assistants might come in handy *continues to giggle*. Thank you for the information and suggestions, Chosen.

There are at least three types of PS books, and each is useful in a different way...

I recommend starting with an overall how-to-use-PS tutorials book, like the Classroom in a Book series. It won't teach you everything but it'll give you the basics and whet your appetite. This is not the same as a how-to-accomplish-effects book, which is also helpful but not now. Start with a tutorial book that demonstrates the interface, tools and features.

Next there are reference books that go into more depth than the overall tutorials, but do less hand-holding. The Real World Photoshop book is very good. It's tough to slog through but it'll teach you things you didn't know PS could do and it'll teach some shortcuts.

Third is the how-to-accomplish-effects books. They tend to be really pretty and you'll be tempted to pick one up right away, but they won't really teach you photoshop. Once you know PS they can teach you neat tricks, and you can flip though them to find the effect you want to accomplish.

The Adobe Photoshop CS3 A-Z by Andrews is very good as an overall reference book , it is great for flicking through to read a short and concise description of a particular tool in photoshop , it even shows examples of filters, blend modes ..etc so you can see how they are meant to work and decide if that is the look you are going for.
It also has the keyboard shortcuts listed.

WOW! I just bought a great book this week and have been slowly working my way through it. It's "The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book" by Richard Lynch (Elsevier, Oxford, 2007) -- a very nicely-written no-nonsense book about ..... well, duh .... layers. What I find fascinating is his emphasis on using layers as workflow management tools, not simply showing how to use layers for masking, adjustments, and so forth. I'm accustomed to thinking of layers from a functional point of view (to modify content in some way), but not so much as organizational tools for maintaining a history of what I have done. I love it when I get something unexpected from a book!